Last Friday, Army rangers fired blank rounds near bystanders at a Florida beach festival; the incident led to the suspension of 18 rangers, Task and Purpose first reported.
“The Army is aware of the incident that occurred at Crab Island near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, on Friday, May 16. We take this situation seriously and are investigating. The Army will ensure accountability based on the outcome of the investigation. No further information is available at this time,” Jennifer S. Gunn, a spokeswoman for the Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, said at the time.
Initially, the Rangers had been cleared to fire blanks for a mock sea battle — one of the scheduled events for Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival — a pirate festival that Fort Walton Beach has been putting on for 69 years.
But “what happened at Crab Island was NOT part of the Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival, NOR was it approved by either the City of Fort Walton Beach or the Billy Bowlegs organization,” the City of Fort Walton Beach wrote on Facebook a day after the incident.
According to the city, the mock battle was scheduled to take place between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. However, The New York Times reported that around 3:30 p.m., at least five calls came into the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office with reports of gunfire.
Charter boat captain Michael Ingram said that when the firing began, people grew concerned and took cover. Some had worried that someone had been shot.
“This is unacceptable,” Ingram said, “because there are so many real mass shootings going on in America each year. You can’t be joking about it.”
Video circulating on social media shows the rangers firing a machine gun in the air from a dingy near other civilian boats.
One woman can be heard asking, “Is this real?”
The 18 soldiers put on suspension are reported to be instructors assigned to the 6th Ranger Training Battalion.
There were no reports of injuries.
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